Even after a dozen weeks of back-to-back racing during my Summer Road Trip through iRacing’s road racing series, there was no rest for a weary traveler.
For the fall, a new road beckoned, but unlike the official series open to anyone with a license, this one was invite-only. And that invitation had to be earned.
Now entering its fourth season, the NEO endurance series has established itself as iRacing’s premier endurance league. I’ve been fortunate enough to compete in all three seasons so far — in the first two as a full-time driver and in last season’s 24-hour race at Le Mans — and I’ve seen the skill and effort required to be competitive.
This season promises to require even more of both. With only two classes, one of which will feature iRacing’s still-shiny new GTE cars, the talent pool will be deeper than ever and the interest level is greater than ever.
Fortunately, my SRN Motorsports team has prepared to meet that challenge. I was paired with three of the fastest and most competitive teammates I’ve ever raced with, and headed into last weekend’s cutthroat pre-qualifying session at Silverstone, we knew we’d need all the speed we could muster in order to make the field.
Going fast at Silverstone often meant using every available inch of the road.
A couple of my teammates began practicing more than a month ago while I was still hopping from one car to another on my road trip. Once that adventure ended, I began my own practice in our car of choice, the Ford GT.
I raced that car in week 5 of my Summer Road Trip, but I had driven seven other cars since then. Surely getting back up to speed would take time, right?
Surprisingly not. After my first 25 laps or so of practice, I was within a half-second of my teammates’ best laps. Going into my road trip, I expected that changing cars each week might be a hindrance, but instead, it proved helpful. Each week, it seemed easier to adapt to different cars, as if switching so often made me forget any stubborn muscle memory that had been slowing me down.
Although it was still tough to kick a few old habits, like using my braking points from the Skip Barber car around Silverstone, comfort came easily in the Ford, aided by a quick, stable setup from my teammates.
In our practices together, our lap times were typically separated by just two or three tenths of a second. I was still the slowest on the team, though, so when the pre-qualifying session arrived, I told my teammates that I probably shouldn’t drive unless we were really desperate.
As my three teammates — Jason Gerard, Steven McGarvey, and Karl Modig — took turns in the car, I played the role of statistician, calculating the average lap times for other teams to give us an idea of where we stood.
Karl shares the road with a prototype in the stadium section.
But just as I was tallying up the laps in Karl’s run, which was our team’s third consecutive clean ten-lap run of the day, I got the call I didn’t expect.
“Want to see if you can make it a clean sweep, Corey?” Jason asked.
With that, I put my laptop aside and my driving gloves on. After all, I wasn’t about to turn down a chance to get in the car.
However, I certainly didn’t expect to do well. I was slower than my teammates to begin with, and in addition, I was getting on track when conditions were arguably the worst — the track had heated up and was still rubbering in, making it slick and tough to drive.
In the past, my lack of adaptability to such conditions has been one of my greatest flaws. During this summer’s 24 Hours of Spa, for instance, it took hours of frustration in practice and several stints in the race to get used to the changing track conditions.
But that experience seemed to pay off as I headed on track at Silverstone. While I overdrove some corners in my first few laps, I eventually got into a decent rhythm running lap times solidly in the mid-1:45s.
Navigating the rubbering-in esses at Silverstone.
After seven laps, I wasn’t on pace to beat any of our team’s previous runs, so my teammates called me in — a move I encouraged them to make when I started my run.
My average lap time of a 1:45.580 was about two tenths off our best run of the day. Of course, my times would’ve likely slipped a bit in the final three laps, but my average likely would have remained good enough to make the grid.
It’s a feat few teams accomplished. Out of 30 GTE teams that made a pre-qualifying attempt, only 13 received the golden ticket into the new NEO season. Our SRN team was solidly among those, placing fifth in the final results thanks to Steve and Karl’s quick runs.
With that, we’ve checked one goal off the list and made the field. That opens up a big opportunity — and presents a big challenge — for me as a driver. Surrounded by fast teammates and competitors, I refuse to be a liability to have in the car.
That means I will need to approach this season different than any other. Instead of moonlighting in different cars and splitting my time between series as I have in the past three endurance seasons, I will be driving the same car for months, needing to thoroughly learn its tendencies while finding speed, consistency, and adaptability.
Cresting the hill exiting the esses at Road Atlanta.
I got my first test of that earlier this week in the official IMSA series, where I drove the Ford in a 75-minute race at Road Atlanta. Although it wasn’t the strongest GTE field — certainly not as competitive as the NEO grid will be — it was still a chance to try out the Ford in race conditions.
I’d like to think that I largely passed that test. I qualified more than a second faster than the next car, and in the race, I found consistency even on older tires en route to a class victory.
If I can perform like that all season, I hope it will help me take a big step as a driver. When others see me in official servers, I want their reaction to be “wow, he’s a NEO driver!” instead of “wait, he’s a NEO driver?!”
It’s a big ask, but armed with lessons learned from my Summer Road Trip and a new focus for this season, I think I’m prepared.
The road is calling, and I’m ready to answer.